THE THANKLESS JOB OF FOSTER CARE

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

If foster parents had a dollar for every time a child welfare expert lauded them as the "backbone of the system," they'd be swathing their youngest charges in gold-plated Pampers. The rhetoric of nobility goes a long way in the child-welfare system.

But when it gets down to the nitty-gritty, the foster parent often gets treated like an indentured servant.

They take kids in the middle of the night; they take cocaine babies who never seem to stop crying; they take troubled kids who might set the dining room furniture on fire.

Tough conditions for foster parents aren't limited to Illinois. That may explain a disastrous trend: While many more children are coming into child welfare, many foster parents are leaving. Since 1979, participation in foster care has declined by 30 percent, according to the National Foster Parent Association.

The need for foster homes is greater than ever. Obviously, the system has to find ways to buck up its foster parents beyond paying them lip service.

It is encouraging that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has recognized the obvious: Children generally are better off in their own neighborhoods, where they can attend their own schools and stay in familiar environs. A pilot program in community-based foster care seeks to let them do just that.

The General Assembly can do its part by approving legislation that creates, in essence, a Bill of Rights for foster parents. It would provide, among other things, that foster parents have the right to participate in case planning and decision-making for a child and be given written notice of changes in a case plan or decisions to move a child to another home. Enforcement would be monitored by a Foster Care Advisory Council, which would include foster parents.

As a companion, lawmakers should also adopt Rep. Tom Dart's proposal for a statewide tracking system of foster-home availability. Nothing is more frustrating to a foster parent with an empty bedroom than to hear DCFS say it doesn't have any available homes.

Although it has stirred considerable controversy from child-welfare advocates who say it is punitive, the legislature should also pass Gov. Jim Edgar's multi-tier payment plan for foster parents.

Increasingly, children are placed with relatives who are pressed into service as foster parents. Often those relatives don't get licensed, so they aren't subject to the requirements for foster parents, and the state can't claim federal reimbursement for their payments.

Edgar's plan would set a lower payment rate for relatives who aren't licensed. They would get the foster-care rate once they are licensed--an obvious incentive to do so. One issue to be resolved is whether DCFS can ease some standards to qualify many relatives without compromising safety and care.

Edgar also proposes to pay basic Department of Public Aid rates and avoid opening a court case, when children have been living with a relative for some time before they're reported to DCFS.

The changes are expected to save $44 million a year. Critics complain that these measures are tough, but they have to recognize the enormous financial pressures on DCFS and the legislature's increasing reluctance to pour more money into a $1.2 billion system. This payment plan doesn't penalize licensed foster parents and should raise the levels of relative care.

Foster parenting is a tough job, one that, unfortunately, fewer people are willing to take on. They deserve our thanks, and our help.